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Kyle Rittenhouse Is a Product of the Republican Martyr Machine
This is what happens when you have a party that commends armed vigilantism
It’s a pattern we’ve seen time and time again: The loudest voices in the Republican Party and conservative media tell the nation that police are failing to maintain law and order, and sympathetic militia movements hear that as a call to action. On Tuesday evening, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, that subtle call-and-response led to bloodshed.
Kenosha had been rocked by tumultuous protests since video circulated of Kenosha police officer Rusten Sheskey firing a gun seven times at point-blank range into Jacob Blake’s back as he tried to get into his van with his children on Sunday. Protests swiftly followed, with peaceful daytime marches followed by clashes with police and destruction of property at night.
Such protests hold an irresistible attraction to right-wing media, including the cottage industry of social media influencers who repackage videos captured at events to serve their constructed narratives of widespread panic in America’s liberal cities, painting demonstrators as reprobates with broad brushstrokes at every turn. Federal government officials like Acting Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Ken Cuccinelli, who helped orchestrate the federal troops in Portland…
